A 3-minute experience where you play a dinosaur with severe ADHD, but none of the NPCs relate.
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I feel like I just got read like a book. A short and sweet experience that added some laughter to my day!
In the part when you search through your notes to find a password, I genuinely forgot what I was looking for and thought the password was missing.... i am the dinosaur and the dinosaur is me :P
In the part when you search through your notes to find a password, I genuinely forgot what I was looking for and thought the password was missing.... i am the dinosaur and the dinosaur is me :P
My personality is entirely dinosaur
he just like me for real
Oh... He Just Like Me... He Just Like Me Fr!!!
It's a risky gambit gamifying disorders, it's on the one hand potentially a very humanizing tool for education and extending empathy through the literal putting you in the shoes of someone who experiences what you do not. Conversely though, if done poorly it can be insensitive or inaccurate (though experiences with such conditions are often divergent enough that many will disagree on the accuracy of the portrayal) and by its very nature, player agency can end up in conflict with the intent of the designer and the message ends up lost in the process.
Fortunately, the Tale of The ADHD dinosaur for the most part doesn't really have those problems, its too short to have them to be honest. Its a short, cute, somewhat effective depiction of ADHD and specifically its impact and frustration in the workplace. All it was missing was the dinosaur frantically looking for where the hell it left its phone and realizing it had left it inside the fridge when it put it there a second to make a cheese sandwhich.
Speaking as someone who has ADHD, I don't know if I'm fully on board with the level changing as metaphor for working memory deficiency and executive dysfunction, although I do see some surface similarities; it did get me when I reached a pineapple and suddenly the box had changed to banana in a sort of "ah shit, It was actually another thing I was supposed to get" kind of way. It's one of those things where, I didn't really realize until I was diagnosed that I had always unconsciously tried to make up for this deficiency, by always asking for very detailed instructions from people and repeating them to myself over and over again or even writing them down as you do in the game. It made me laugh out loud when that whole section ocurred and the dinosaur had like 1 million things written down and messily organized so you can't find anything.
In high school I never used my locker except to store cans of food (cause I would forget to bring lunch every other day) because it was basically impossible for me to remember to swap out my books appropriately for each class, I would always forget something and so I just carried everything inside my bag (and by extension carried it uphill on my bike every day to school) which would basically render every paper and worksheet into mush by the end of it.
It's worth noting the inclusion of the coworkers seemingly callous reactions, ignorant of the difficulties attributing it to deficiencies in character like "oh you're just lazy or not paying attention etc". This, I think is probably the most important aspect of this game, because whilst I think it's a lot better nowadays, there is still a lack of understanding and even just lack of knowledge about ADHD being a thing that this attitude is still common. Now I don't want this to turn into a self therapy session, but being diagnosed at 23 after going through the entire educational system without anyone even thinking about this being a possibility (not that my difficulties went unnoticed, but these were mostly attributed to either teenage angst, depression or most absurd of all to me a few suggesting I was some kinda genius savant that did bad in school because I was unstimulated or something) does make me wonder how many others are currently going through the same thing unadressed. Thankfully ADHD is one of the most treatable disorders mainly through medication though it doesn't work for everyone.
In a way, it's almost crueler to be told that you are smart, or talented or what have you when you are facing these difficulties because finding yourself unable to do what seems so easy to others ingrains a pretty big "impostor syndrome". Ah shit, it really did turn into a self therapy session, anyways the game is cute and Im doing good now so give it a go I guess.
It's a risky gambit gamifying disorders, it's on the one hand potentially a very humanizing tool for education and extending empathy through the literal putting you in the shoes of someone who experiences what you do not. Conversely though, if done poorly it can be insensitive or inaccurate (though experiences with such conditions are often divergent enough that many will disagree on the accuracy of the portrayal) and by its very nature, player agency can end up in conflict with the intent of the designer and the message ends up lost in the process.
Fortunately, the Tale of The ADHD dinosaur for the most part doesn't really have those problems, its too short to have them to be honest. Its a short, cute, somewhat effective depiction of ADHD and specifically its impact and frustration in the workplace. All it was missing was the dinosaur frantically looking for where the hell it left its phone and realizing it had left it inside the fridge when it put it there a second to make a cheese sandwhich.
Speaking as someone who has ADHD, I don't know if I'm fully on board with the level changing as metaphor for working memory deficiency and executive dysfunction, although I do see some surface similarities; it did get me when I reached a pineapple and suddenly the box had changed to banana in a sort of "ah shit, It was actually another thing I was supposed to get" kind of way. It's one of those things where, I didn't really realize until I was diagnosed that I had always unconsciously tried to make up for this deficiency, by always asking for very detailed instructions from people and repeating them to myself over and over again or even writing them down as you do in the game. It made me laugh out loud when that whole section ocurred and the dinosaur had like 1 million things written down and messily organized so you can't find anything.
In high school I never used my locker except to store cans of food (cause I would forget to bring lunch every other day) because it was basically impossible for me to remember to swap out my books appropriately for each class, I would always forget something and so I just carried everything inside my bag (and by extension carried it uphill on my bike every day to school) which would basically render every paper and worksheet into mush by the end of it.
It's worth noting the inclusion of the coworkers seemingly callous reactions, ignorant of the difficulties attributing it to deficiencies in character like "oh you're just lazy or not paying attention etc". This, I think is probably the most important aspect of this game, because whilst I think it's a lot better nowadays, there is still a lack of understanding and even just lack of knowledge about ADHD being a thing that this attitude is still common. Now I don't want this to turn into a self therapy session, but being diagnosed at 23 after going through the entire educational system without anyone even thinking about this being a possibility (not that my difficulties went unnoticed, but these were mostly attributed to either teenage angst, depression or most absurd of all to me a few suggesting I was some kinda genius savant that did bad in school because I was unstimulated or something) does make me wonder how many others are currently going through the same thing unadressed. Thankfully ADHD is one of the most treatable disorders mainly through medication though it doesn't work for everyone.
In a way, it's almost crueler to be told that you are smart, or talented or what have you when you are facing these difficulties because finding yourself unable to do what seems so easy to others ingrains a pretty big "impostor syndrome". Ah shit, it really did turn into a self therapy session, anyways the game is cute and Im doing good now so give it a go I guess.
For a 5 min game it has a little fun music going and the dinossaur taking so much work to do a simple task and getting all mixed up and getting zero appraisal, thank god they did this with dinosaurs.
As someone who has ADHD symptons, the part with the book with all those things showing, man I really felt it.
The game is short and sweet, I didn't wanna rate it but a 3 stars will be a good time spent overall.
As someone who has ADHD symptons, the part with the book with all those things showing, man I really felt it.
The game is short and sweet, I didn't wanna rate it but a 3 stars will be a good time spent overall.
This was actually really sad